Tony Barbieri
| Tony Barbieri | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 26, 1963 Framingham, Massachusetts, US |
| Occupation | Comedian, writer |
| Years active | 1988–present |
Anthony J. "Tony" Barbieri (born August 26, 1963, Framingham, Massachusetts) is an Italian American comedic writer, and performer. He is most famous for his appearances as the Jimmy Kimmel Live! character "Jake Byrd."
Barbieri was the writer of the monthly Monroe cartoon for Mad Magazine from 1997 to 2010.
In 1999 he got his first writer's credit for television while working on The Man Show. Barbieri went on to write for the sitcoms That's My Bush! and That '80s Show. In 2003 he wrote and starred in his first movie Windy City Heat. He was also a writer and recurring character on Crank Yankers, playing Niles Standish.
Barbieri began writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2003, and in 2004 started appearing on the show as the character Jake Byrd. Byrd is portrayed as a good-natured man obsessed with celebrities, and his bits involve him satirizing excessive media attention to celebrity spectacles such as the Michael Jackson trial or the arrest of Paris Hilton. Byrd usually interacts with the fans while they are being interviewed by the media or inserts himself into press conferences. He has successfully fooled major media outlets into thinking he is a real person, including The New York Times, who quoted him in a May 1, 2004 article about the Michael Jackson trial, before running a redact five days later noting that he was a character. Despite this, the Times wrote again about him, as if he were a real person, during the 2007 O. J. Simpson robbery case.
In 2008 Barbieri won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the Jimmy Kimmel Live! song "I'm F**king Matt Damon". He was nominated for another Emmy in 2013 as part of Kimmel's writing staff for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.
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